The digital age has revolutionised the look of journalism, be it online or in print. The subsequent shift to multi-media and multi-platform publishing arguably makes visual appearance and branding more important than ever. Yet visual journalism remains a relatively under-theorised and under-researched field.

Visual Journalism presents a unique, critical investigation into this area. Combining theory and practice, the chapters integrate the experiences of practitioners working in photography, visual design and set design, including insights into how they work and the changing environments they find themselves in, with an innovative theory of visual communication - multimodality - that enables the text to break down and analyse the key elements and patterns of visual design.

In exploring visual journalism from these two angles, and across a range of contemporary media platforms, the text evaluates the extent to which visual communication comprises a significant part of what content means to audiences. As such, the book is an invaluable resource for students of journalism, media studies and photography, as well as for practising designers and journalists.

David Machin is Professor of Media and Communication at Örebro University, Sweden. He writes and researches mainly on critical discourse analysis and multimodality and has published ten books across these areas. His recent books include How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Approach (2012) and Analysing Popular Music (2010). He is the co-editor of two international peer reviewed journals, Social Semiotics and Journal of Language and Politics, and is associate editor of the online community SemiotiX.

Lydia Polzer is a freelance magazine designer, journalist and photojournalist. She also presents lectures on magazine design, layout and production for journalism post- and undergraduates at Brunel University and has lectured at City University in the past. She's a winner of the UNESCO and The Independent World Press Freedom Award (2007) and winner of the public choice Deeper Perspective (UK) category of the International Photography Awards (2007). She regularly attends design meetings at a major publishing house and has up to date insights into the world of magazine and newspaper design. The visual presentation of news and feature content is part of her day-to-day working life and she will be able to add a first-hand practical dimension to the book.